


Bane of the Doctor - Part 2: Runaway's Bastard

by RodimusDoctor



Series: Bane of the Doctor [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-15 19:43:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1317001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RodimusDoctor/pseuds/RodimusDoctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The name of the Doctor's tormentor is revealed, along with a slice of his backstory. He travels to the Library and coerces River Song's data ghost into revealing the truth behind the Doctor's 'death', and has his adopted father 'Colonel Runaway' Manson present that truth to Madame Kovarian. River finds a way out of the Library and goes after him, bent on revenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bane of the Doctor - Part 2: Runaway's Bastard

Silence will fall when the question is asked. That’s been my mantra since the day I was born. And, though the task of ensuring that silence had been given to my sister, somehow I always knew it would fall to me.

They believe him dead. Madame Kovarian, the Papal Mainframe, the Order my father had served with so faithfully... they all believed the task was done.

I refused to believe. Even the proof of my own eyes, watching from a distance as the astronaut dealt the killing shot, wasn’t enough to satisfy me. The Doctor would never die so easily, the man who talks, the man who plans. His plans have plans, didn’t Madame Kovarian realize that?

I would need proof to convince her. And I knew just where to get it. I have my own plans for the Doctor, and they begin with his wife, my sister.  
And when I am done, my name will be glorified above even the Papal Mainframe itself....

 

River Song knew her time in paradise had ended the moment her husband caught fire. They’d been walking in the park with their children when, through no cause she could determine, Proper Dave ignited like a starburst in the Medusa Cascade.

For the first second it was beautiful. That horrified River more than what came next.

Proper Dave screamed. He dropped to the ground and rolled, but the flames continued to burn.

The children screamed in terror. River took off her jacket and threw it over Dave, then threw herself on top of him in an attempt to smother the fire. The jacket was incinerated almost instantly; River cried out as the flames burned her own flesh, but she stubbornly held on.

Hands grabbed her and pulled her back. Dave continued to burn. And scream.

River looked around. Charlotte had appeared beside her children, and was trying to calm them down. Other Dave and Miss Evangelista held her by the arms, and shouted at her to stay put. River also saw Anita on the other side of the park, running to join them.

Doctor Moon appeared on the scene; he knelt beside River and laid a hand on her leg, and all her burns healed and her clothes reformed.

“Forget me!” River slapped Moon across the face. “Save him! Do something now!”

Doctor Moon walked toward Proper Dave, then stopped. He tried to move his legs but could not; they’d grown roots and anchored themselves to the ground. He turned his head to speak, but no words came out.

“Doctor Moon!” Charlotte cried, and she ran toward him. And stopped. Her feet had likewise become rooted to the spot.

And beyond them, Proper Dave continued to burn. And scream.

And then another scream. River, Other Dave and Miss Evangelista turned to see that Anita had ignited, flames envealoping her like a brilliant coat of agony.

“Mommy!” cried Ella, River’s second-born, as she, Lee and Joshua ran toward her. “Mommy, what’s wrong with Daddy?”

“What’s happening, Mum?” Joshua added.

River tried to answer but could not. She gathered her children to her and held tight.

Proper Dave continued to burn.

Doctor Moon had become a tree. The same was happening to Charlotte; leaves sprouted from fingers that had become twigs, her arms branches, her body wood.

They’d been taken out of the equation, River realized. Enemy action.

“Stop it!” she shouted. “Whoever you are, that’s enough!”

Proper Dave let out one final shriek of pain, and then his body dissolved into ash. Nearby, the same fate befell Anita. Other Dave cried out; they’d been going steady for a long time now.

“It’s going to be all right,” River told her children, but she was unable to keep the emotion out of her voice. It hadn’t been a simple marriage of convenience with David; she’d loved him. Not as much as her previous husband, perhaps, but she had genuinely cared for the man, the father of her children. He’d given her a life that she could never have had in the real world.

And now he was ash. It might have been a glitch in the system, but River’s instincts said otherwise. Someone had deliberately tortured and destroyed her David and Anita, and immobilized Doctor Moon and Charlotte. They could strike again at any time, and any one of them – even her children – could be next.

“Who are you?” River shouted at the sky. “What do you want?”

For a moment there was silence, and River fully understood the expression, the quiet before the storm. Then, a voice thundered all around her, like an angry deity making its presence known.

“Hello, dear sister,” the voice said. “Do I have your attention?”

 

The afterlife is supposed to offer peace and safety from the trials of life. Poor River Song probably believed that before today. Now she knows that even death cannot save her from me.

I spare a moment to check the integrity of my shield: 100%, and covering a space-suit made from the densest of materials. Nevertheless, I am not so naïve as to believe it will protect me from the Vashta Nerada indefinitely. I was able to neutralize CAL and Moon remotely, but for what I need to do next I must access the core of the Library directly.

Inside that mainframe, River is demanding more information. She’s never met me, probably wasn’t aware of my existence before today. No one saw fit to tell her that her mother, Amelia Pond, had borne twins.

“I have questions for you,” I tell her as I prepare my Transmat. “You will answer them. Or the others will share your husband’s fate. Like this.” I take a half-second to choose, then I transmit my Hellfire program into the digital semblance of the other David. Then I activate my Transmat and teleport myself into the Library.

It is completely dark in the main foyer, and not just from the lack of light. Immediately the Vashta Nerada attack my shield; I activate my suit’s illumination packs to slow them down, casting a circle of light all around me. It works, but my shield’s power has already dropped to 86%.

No time to wait around. I get moving, bound for the anti-grav platform, the planet core, and CAL.

At the same time, I’m listening in on River and the others inside their mainframe heaven. Panic continues, as is only natural when a friend is burning to death. Especially when the flames are unquenchable, while simultaneously not consuming. In theory, the man could burn forever inside the computer, or for at least as long as CAL exists. Not likely, though; CAL and Doctor Moon will eventually break down the virus I infected their systems with. They won’t free themselves for a while, however; the software of that virus is a hundred years more advanced than they are.

I let David suffer a minute longer, enough time for me to get to the platform. I upload the kill program, and the software comprising David is wiped from CAL’s system.

“You bastard!” River shouts.

“Not technically, I’m not,” I tell her. I activate the platform and begin my trip down. “Now, are you ready to talk? Or do you require further persuasion?”

“No! Please, no,” she cries. I upload another virus anyway, and her youngest child’s left leg breaks. River pleads for me to stop. I drink it in. Hearing her beg is a truly wonderful thing.

The platform reaches the lowest level. I step off and walk quickly to CAL’s main terminal.

“Listen carefully, River Song,” I say. “I’m going to ask my questions now, and I shall record your responses. When you have answered them all, I will leave and harm your loved ones no more. Do we have an understanding?”

“Yes,” she replies stiffly. She must be so very, very angry at her helplessness. Now you know what it’s like, sister mine.

I extract a holomatter projector from my belt and connect it to CAL. Then I quickly check my shield status: 47%. I’m running out of time. Better get on with it.

“Tell me, dear sister,” I say as I start recording, “did the Doctor really die at Lake Silencio?”

She hesitates. I expected as much, and have another virus prepared. Her middle child’s right index finger snaps in half.

“All right! Stop! Please stop,” River begs. “No, the Doctor did not die. It was a hoax.”

“I thought as much,” I say. “Tell me how he did it. And answer truthfully; I will know if you don’t.”

River tells me everything. As she does, I can hear Miss Evangelista in the background cooing over the children. Isn’t she just sweet? I debate wiping her from the system, but realize it would serve no purpose.

I disconnect the holo projector as soon as I have what I need. I couldn’t hurry River with her answers; she might have suspected my predicament and tried to delay me. My shield integrity is down to 13%, and the antigrav platform seems to take forever to return to the surface. I realize I might not make it out of the Library alive.

When I finally reach the main level, I run. There’s nothing for it – I have three shadows, one of my lights has gone out, and my shield is down to 4%. It is simply a matter of whether or not I want to survive. If I die here, now, in this place, my life will have had no meaning at all. 

The Vashta Nerada have begun eating my suit by the time I get to the Transmats. All but one of my lights have gone out; I can barely see. Good thing I’d prepared for this ahead of time – as I teleport back aboard my ship, my own Transmat system eliminates all life signs that are not mine.

I’ve made it! Phase one complete. The recording I have made shall serve as proof of the Doctor’s continued existence.

There is much yet for me to do – a place to prepare, and people to recruit. First, though, I have a very personal trip to take.

It is time I went home.

 

River sat at her home terminal, fighting. She had access to CAL, and she knew more than a little about the software that comprised her. With her help, she might just manage to free Charlotte and Doctor Moon sooner than they could manage on their own.

The children were in bed; Ella and Lee had casts on, and Joshua watched over them with Miss Evangelista’s help.

“Professor Song?” Miss Evangelista knocked on the open door to River’s den. “The children are asleep now. Can I get you anything?”

“Coffee,” River said. “Lots of it.”

“Already brewing,” Miss Evangelista said.

“Oh, you are wonderful,” River told her. She picked up her Personal Data Pad and checked some data.

“I saw you using that when you were being interrogated,” Miss Evangelista said. “Very clever, the way you typed with it behind your back. What were you doing, exactly?”

“Giving that man more than he’d bargained for,” River said, and smiled for the first time in hours. “He called me his sister, as if he knew me from somewhere. Well, if he thinks he can come to my world to hurt and kill the people I love, and get away clean, he clearly doesn’t know me at all.”

 

To everyone else in the universe, he is known as ‘Colonel Runaway’. To me, he has always been Father. Not my true father, no, but he was the one who raised me while the life he knew was crushed by endless ridicule. He is Colonel now in nickname only; in reality, he is Captain Manson, and he was lucky to get that.

I pushed my way through the crowd of laughing children on our doorstep, ignoring their taunts of “Runaway Bastard.” Their jeers once cut like a blade of ice. Now, in light of what I had, they were nothing.

I found my father in the kitchen, staring at his most recent bottle. He bought one every week, and would stare at it for an hour each day, and on the final day he’d pour it down the sink. He never drank a drop. Everyone expected him to turn to the bottle, and every day he defeated those expectations. One small victory to keep him going.

“Father,” I said, “I have it. Proof that he’s alive.”

Father looked up at me, fresh admiration in his eyes. He didn’t need to be told who I was talking about, nor the gravity of what it meant. Without a word he went to the cupboard and selected two tumblers. He placed them on the table, opened the bottle and filled each tumbler to the rim.

“A toast,” he said, handing one to me. “To my son, Dirge Manson, the man who will kill the Doctor.”

“Kill him?” I said, the tumbler almost to my lips. “My dear father, I have no intention of letting him off that easily.”

 

Madame Kovarian watched silently as the hologram recording of River Song recounted the true events at Lake Silencio in Utah on 22 April 2011. Captain Manson stood to one side with the holoprojector, waiting patiently.

Madame Kovarian’s expression did not change throughout the entire presentation, but her holomatrix did flicker from time to time. The same was true of River’s hologram, but to a lesser degree.

Two Silence stood behind the Madame. One of them mimed the action of running away with his right hand along its left arm. Manson sneered and looked away, and was blissfully unaware of the slight until his eyes found the Silence once more.

“This changes nothing,” Kovarian said before the presentation had concluded. “The Doctor may not be dead but he is laying low. And out of our affairs.”

“But... this is proof that the plan has failed!” Manson protested. “Everything the Church has worked towards... we must act on this!”

“Captain Manson, you forget yourself,” Madame Kovarian said. “You are no longer privy to our Order’s current priorities and objectives. The Mother Superious herself has ordered us to stand down until further notice. We thank you for procuring this information and bringing it to our attention. I will see that it is passed along to the Papal Mainframe, and they will take what actions they deem necessary.

“And you,” she speared his collar with a finger, “will leave this matter with us. Any action taken by you or your son,” she paused to let that sink in, “will be considered an excommunicable offense. Is that clear, Captain?”

“Perfectly,” Manson grunted. It didn’t matter what she decided, anyhow. His son was already hard at work on his plans for the Doctor. Madame Kovarian’s holomatter resurrection had made her into the Mainframe’s puppet; she lacked the will or the initiative to...

“How is dear Dirge, Captain?” Kovarian interrupted his thoughts. “I hope he has not taken some foolish action. Exactly the sort of action this bit of news might have prompted him to. Which raises the question of exactly how you and he came about this information in the first place.”

“My son did not tell me...”

“Dirge Manson acquired this hologram recording at the Library,” the River Song hologram said. Captain Manson’s eyes widened, then he quickly switched the holo projector off. River Song blinked out...

...and reappeared a moment later. Manson struggled to switch her off again but could not. The River hologram stood stiff as a board with a neutral expression, but one who knew her might have seen the smile she was struggling to suppress.

“Interesting,” Madame Kovarian said. “Very interesting. Where is Dirge Manson now?”

“Unknown,” River said.

“But you know where he went?”

“Don’t answer!” Manson snapped.

“Shut him up,” Madame Kovarian glanced over Captain Manson’s shoulder, and a couple of guards grabbed him and clamped a hand over his mouth. “Where did Dirge Manson go? And why?”

“Dirge Manson travelled to Chamble in Timezone 89.92 to intercept and apprehend the Doctor at an earlier point in his timeline.”

Kovarian’s visible eye widened. “How much earlier? A previous incarnation? How is this possible?”

“He stole a vortex manipulator,” River said, “like this one.” She held up her right arm to reveal the manipulator on her wrist. Manson shouted behind the guard’s hand – that was the second vortex manipulator Dirge had acquired, the one he was supposed to use to rendez-vous with his son when Dirge called for him. It had been in the pouch on his belt; he glanced down to see the pouch open and empty. How had she...?

“And I’ll take that,” River reached out with her left hand and snatched the holo projector from Manson. “Thank you, Colonel Runaway.” Before anyone could react, River activated the manipulator and disappeared.

“She’s gone!” Manson shouted, the guard’s hand having fallen from his mouth.

“Thank you, Sergeant Manson, that observation was simply breathtaking,” Madame Kovarian said, glaring at the guards behind him. “I thought I told you two to shut him up.”

“Sergeant?” Manson said.

“Yes, ma’am!” the two guards tightened their grip and covered Manson’s mouth once more.

“Well, this is quite a problem,” Madame Kovarian said. “One rogue failed genetics experiment and an apparently sentient solid-light hologram of a successful one, both with vortex manipulators and therefore anywhere in time and space, working against the express orders of the Mother Superious! And all thanks to you, Private Manson, and your adopted son. Anything you’d like to add?”

Manson tried to speak, but the guard’s hands remained firmly clamped over his mouth.

“I didn’t think so,” Kovarian turned to leave, and so did the two Silence. Then she turned back and addressed the guards. “See that the private is made uncomfortable. And contact the Headless Monks. Tell them we are sending a new convert.”

 

Professor River Song had no illusions about the task ahead of her. It had started simply enough; find and punish Dirge Manson, the man who had tortured and destroyed her husband and friends. 

She was a digital angel returned from heaven, a copy uploaded to the holoprojector during the interrogation. The moment the recording of her had been activated, she’d begun downloading information from every available source, including the former Captain Manson’s home computer and the terminal in Madame Kovarian’s audience chamber. That last source had included a Solidgram upgrade, allowing her to interact physically with the world around her. Now she had escaped with a vortex manipulator, and a wealth of information about the Order of the Silence.

But the mission was now more complicated. The Doctor was involved; Dirge clearly meant to finish what she had started. She knew his plan involved the kidnapping of at least one of the Doctor’s previous incarnations – he’d discussed as much with his father - but further insight had been denied her. Whatever he planned to do to the Doctor could have serious repercussions on the timeline. No doubt that was the point.

And...

He was her brother. They were twins, born within minutes of each other. An interesting revelation, but that was all. It would not stop her from finding him and killing him.  
To do so, she would need the Doctor’s help. And she would need to help the Doctor. River Song acquired the items she needed, then programmed her vortex manipulator to take her to a spot where she could be certain of crossing her Doctor’s timeline.

The Delirium Archive.

Continued in Part 3: The Recipe of Fear


End file.
